


the one where they celebrate valentine's day in hueco mundo

by fascinationex



Series: bleach works by fascinationex [25]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Arrancar, F/F, M/M, Valentine's Day, buying chocolate for your undead sweetheart, does tesla have a mouth and if so how do you smooch it, stealing candy from the living world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:56:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26941009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fascinationex/pseuds/fascinationex
Summary: Arrancar-related valentine's shorts from tumblr, prompted ages ago by tumblr user teslalindocruz1. Gin introduces the Valentine’s Day Concept.2. the Tres Bestias are trying to pick chocolate for Harribel3. Nnoitra is having a feeling and he doesn’t like it very much.
Relationships: Emilou Apacci/Tia Harribel/Franceska Mila Rose/Cyan Sung-Sun, Nnoitra Gilga/Tesla Lindocruz, implied Ichimaru Gin & Matsumoto Rangiku
Series: bleach works by fascinationex [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/849117
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	the one where they celebrate valentine's day in hueco mundo

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is an old prompt fill from an ask made by tumblr user teslalindocruz who sent:
>
>> gin throwing a valentine's themed day around las noches. the espada are confused. he has to explain the holiday's context to them -- even though nnoitra thinks it's Disgusting and Gross and Idiotic for humans to celebrate that shit, it SOMEHOW leads to him tryna find his dumb fraccion and make it a goal to smooch tesla's resurreccion's mask but getting frustrated bc he has no lips 😤😤 last prompt can also go for tier bestias!! the tres bestias fighting over who gets the first smooch on harribel. it ends w/ them all kissing her at same time :3! ALSO: stealing chocolate from the world of the living can totally be a thing
> 
> it will become evident that I didn't get all of these into the one short fic, but I got 3 items from this prompt in here and I tried real hard so nobody should judge me ;) 

It’s Gin who brings the concept of Valentine’s Day to Hueco Mundo. He has a very well developed appreciation for the absurd. 

He doesn’t tell the arrancar that it’s the celebration of an oddly specific saint who was martyred in Rome for marrying people illegally. Hollows have no concept of sainthood.

Gin isn’t entirely sure that hollows have a concept of romance or marriage, either – hollows, he's learnt, only label their attachments to delineate the specific dynamics of power in the relationship.

...He’s not sure they _don’t_ have a concept of romance, though. They certainly are attached to one another. And it’s sufficiently surprising to him that they form attachments at all. The Gotei-13 would never believe it, but in many ways the arrancar are very nearly real people.

He’s eyeing Apacci and Mila Rose when he decides it’s time to celebrate Valentine’s Day. It’s only a little bit because he remembers receiving boiled sweets from Rangiku, years and years past. He doesn’t know why he’s remembering that now, anyway. It’s been decades since she’s given anyone anything seriously.

…Or, at least, Gin’s pretty sure she only gets Hitsugaya-taichou chocolate to watch him squirm. But maybe that is serious, in its own unromantic way? 

He starts by commenting on the date – right before another one of Aizen’s interminable espada meetings, when the espada and all their fraccion shadows are milling near the doors.

“Is that date significant?” Ulquiorra asks. His voice is flat and low, incurious-sounding. Towering above him, Yammy squints down at them.

Gin gives them a wide, oily smile. It's pretty much the only expression he wears for this lot.

“Hmm, well. I guess you can’t expect hollows to know about that sorta thing…” he says, but he can see that, with Ulquiorra’s attention he’s caught most of the others’, too. “I guess I’ll have to tell you.”

A projector screen descends from the ceiling, right on cue, squeaking slightly as it unrolls. Somewhere in the crowd of curious arrancar onlookers, Gin’s pretty sure he hears someone give a short, disbelieving cough. 

He never could pass up an opportunity for a little bit of entertainment. Las Noches can be so very dull.

The arrancar have… opinions. Loud ones.

“Why would the men and women do it on different days?” demands Loly, who Gin thinks has maybe not caught on to the specifics. “What if a woman wants to give something to a man – does she do it on the boy’s day or the girl’s day?”

Hmm, that's going to end in tears, isn't it? “Ah… that’s not quite right–”

“Why would a woman want to give a gift to a _man_?” Mila Rose wonders.

"Don't be foolish," Sung-Sun snipes back, "because they lack taste and refinement." A pause. "Like Apacci."

"I'm not giving anything to a man!" howls Apacci, deeply affronted, even though all evidence suggests she didn't know what Valentine's Day was two minutes ago. Gin's smile widens.

“This is stupid,” says Nnoitra flatly, from head and shoulders above most of the others.

Tesla is right behind his left shoulder, eyes focused on Nnoitra to the point where it’s hard to be sure if he’s actually noticed the rest of the room. He probably has, as he's very... dedicated... to threats against his master. Tesla reminds Gin of a performing dog he saw once, with that kind of focus. Tesla always looks at Nnoitra like that. Gin is genuinely unsure what that fraccion does when Nnoitra is in the meetings—does he stand there, stone still, and wait for him? It doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility.

Despite (evidently) having a high tolerance for weirdness, right now Nnoitra looks more outwardly uncomfortable and offended than Gin has ever seen him. Curious.

“All this to celebrate the supposed ‘power of the heart’,” says Ulquiorra, staring at Gin’s projection. 

“Has any of them actually seen a human's heart?” Szayel says, tapping his lower lip thoughtfully. When he notices he has the eyes of several other arrancar, he brushes his bright hair away from his face, spreads one arm and and raises his voice, responding to their attention: “Even as a stylistic representation, it lacks _specificity_ –”

“If I can’t fight it, I don’t care,” Grimmjow says. He looks bored at best. It is is exactly the sentiment Gin expected from Nnoitra, too, although…

The curl of Nnoitra’s lip looks more perturbed than dismissive. 

Grimmjow at least doesn’t seem to notice the fascinating mix of confusion, disappointment and relief his comment engenders from his own fraccion. 

The overall consensus is that humans, and shinigami by extension, are very weird and like to waste their own time.

For a sad moment Gin wonders if perhaps he’s failed to sow the seeds of any kind of entertainment at all. Then he catches it from the corner of his eye as the group disperses – Apacci snatching at Sung-Sun’s sleeve, already hissing to her in a low voice. 

Although Harribel precedes Gin into the meeting room, he can see that Sung-Sun and Mila Rose are already grudgingly interested in whatever Apacci’s saying. 

* * *

“How do you tell what’s good quality?” Apacci wonders.

“I suppose it’s more important to pick the one she likes the most…” says Mila Rose, but she doesn’t look happy or confident about it. 

They’re in the living world, and Gin must have been right about something, because they can’t go past a shopping district without seeing enormous displays of heart-shaped gifts. 

They peer in through the window of a chocolatier’s shop, and it’s all very… bright. And confusing.

“Price,” says Sung-Sun decisively. 

“The biggest ones cost the most, though,” Mila Rose points out. “I don’t think Harribel-sama wants twelve kilograms of chocolate…” 

There is a nervous ‘or does she?’ that hangs silently in the air between them. 

“You don’t think…”

“No, of course not.”

“Price per weight, then,” Sung-Sun suggests, although she sounds less sure now. 

“Why price?” asks Apacci, in the tone of one who knows she will regret asking. 

“Because, fool, the more you sacrifice for something the more important it is.”

That makes perfect sense to the others, of course, except–

“Who are you calling ‘fool’? You can’t–”

“Apacci,” sighs Mila Rose, grabbing her biceps. “We need to find the right chocolate for Harribel-sama. We can’t do that if you’re arguing with Sung-Sun.”

“I suppose even a savage makes a good point occasionally,” simpers Sung-Sun, and sweeps into the store before them.

The effect of her dramatic entrance is diminished by the human proprietor looking up in confusion when the door opens, apparently all on its own. 

Mila Rose bares her teeth, and Appaci watches with a satisfied air – maybe she can’t launch herself at Sung-Sun right now, but she can appreciate that someone else is feeling the sharp end of her tongue for a change. 

The only problem is that after they figure out the cost per gram of each product, there are still any number of comparatively priced packages of fancy expensive chocolates. 

It’s hard to say what Harribel-sama might like best, because in general all Harribel-sama really eats is… hollows. Which don’t taste like any kind of chocolate. 

“Um…”

It is a long, long morning. 

* * *

Nnoitra squints. There has to be a mouth under there somewhere. Tesla’s mask in resurreccion is very like his adjuchas form, and as an adjuchas he couldn’t possibly have had another form in which to eat.

Therefore, there must be a mouth, and presumably a way to get to it through his mask.

But Nnoitra can’t see it.

He tips his head. There must be. It has to be in there.

Nnoitra is …conflicted. Not about Tesla’s mouth, which is only peripherally related.

He is conflicted because the idea of celebrating affection between people is stupid and pointless and gross and it pisses him off conceptually. 

Things sure were less complicated when he was more like a true hollow.

He kind of wishes that Gin had saved his stupid sermon about the dumb human holiday for the espada meeting, or just not brought it up at all. But he didn’t. He brought it up in front of everyone, which means Tesla saw it, and it also means that a lot of other arrancar saw it, so they ALL know it’s an opportunity to…

This is stupid. It’s stupid, and it’s making _him_ stupid, like shinigami stupidity is damn infectious or something. 

He feels crazy and wildly out of control. And bad. He feels… bad. And he doesn’t even know where Tesla’s fucking mouth is. 

As usual, Nnoitra deals with feeling bad by getting angry. He scares off six arrancar before lunch, and by ‘scares off’ he means five of them aren’t ever coming back. 

(The sixth is Apacci. She’s weak, and so obviously obsessed with Harribel he can’t quite manage to feel threatened by her.

But she doesn’t need to talk to Tesla _today_.

Nnoitra bares his teeth and takes a half-assed swing at her and she takes one look at him and flees with all the speed of a startled gazelle. Yeah.)

“Tesla,” he snarls finally, biting off the word like it’s seriously offending him.

Tesla’s massive masked face turns toward him like a flower growing toward the sun. He watches Nnoitra steadily and unerringly. It is a lot harder to control the instincts of his resurreccion form, but Tesla never seems to have any trouble being still and obedient for Nnoitra.

Nnoitra stretches up, buries a hand in Tesla’s long yellow mane, and yanks him down – down, down, slamming his massive form into the ground in a spray of sand. Tesla grunts but doesn’t protest or resist. 

Nnoitra eyes him. Tesla, he thinks idly, feeling the most settled he has all day, would submit to his blade without even a struggle. 

That’s boring and stupid and pathetic. But it’s also reliable and steady and, in a way, kind of hot. 

Nnoitra can’t help it if the idea that this big, heavy muscled creature living or dying willingly at his whim turns him on. Very rarely does anyone bow _willingly_ to Nnoitra’s whims. 

Tesla stares with blind devotion at him from behind his mask, and Nnoitra has a brief, powerful desire to test his theory. Tesla is more trouble than he’s worth. He makes Nnoitra feel… complicated. And bad. Often bad. Like an itch beneath his skin. 

He flexes his fingers on the haft of Santa Teresa and thinks about it, and all the while Tesla watches him, still and prone and trusting – not even trusting that he won’t be hurt, just that Nnoitra will do what he wants with him.

Nnoitra scowls thunderously. 

“Where’s your fucking mouth?” he demands instead. 

Tesla’s remaining eye blinks slowly. After a second, his mask makes a grinding noise and cracks open, just a little, just enough, along the same axis as his tusks – which, Nnoitra can see after a second, do technically emerge from behind his lip.

His breath is hot. 

Nnoitra braces himself one-handed on the curve of a tusk, leans in, and presses his mouth against the skin exposed just underneath. It’s warm and, owing to being hidden beneath the protective layer of his mask all the time, extremely soft. 

Tesla makes a strange, rumbling, pleased noise.

“Just… shut up,” says Nnoitra, a little desperately. He feels bad. And. Good? He… feels… 

(He rubs his thumb comfortingly against Santa Teresa.

He’s still so _angry_ about this.)

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is no longer the one where this was originally posted (hence my moving it here) and is now [cardio-vore](http://cardio-vore.tumblr.com)
> 
> If you liked something here feel free to let me know in a comment. Otherwise have a good day.


End file.
